The Long Hello
by Jenwryn
Summary: Elizabeth/John UST. Tag to episode 2.16 "The Long Goodbye", this ficlet is set while they are still in the infirmary and dealing - or not dealing, as the case may be - with the events that have occurred. Edited July 2008.


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_A/N: All recognisable characters and settings belong to the creators of Stargate Atlantis, one of whom I am not. Anyway, this little ficlet is a tag to episode 2.16 ("The Long Goodbye").  
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**The Long Hello  
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They still lay awkwardly in the infirmary.

Elizabeth has had someone fetch her her laptop and, despite Carson's orders that she take it easy for a while, has buried herself deep in a flurry of work. When the Scotsman sees her, head bent over the screen, he berates her in exasperation, but one look at her face, when he moves to confiscate the offending device, tells him that she'll probably relax better with something to occupy her mind. John, on the other hand, has put away his palm pilot and lies there with his eyes shut. He is pretending to be asleep but the regular twitching of his thumb against the sheets, as if he were beating out the rhythm of some music only audible to him, gives his game away.

It isn't as though they haven't talked about what happened to them. They have. They've talked about it a surprising amount. Talked about not being in control, talked about what that means for two people like them, both so determined to always grasp the reins of their individual destinies firmly in their own hands. Sure they've talked. They've even discussed the kiss, obliquely. But you can tell, from the way that they avoid direct contact with one another's eyes, the way that they rest so awkwardly, that talking alone isn't enough. Talking itself, the mere vocal exchange of vowels and consonants, doesn't intrinsically equate to communication.

They _have _talked. But so much, so many of the important things, has been left unsaid.

Elizabeth stares with unseeing eyes at the screen in front of her. She still can't come to terms with the warrior that inhabited her, the warrior that she became. Her entire body aches dully from the workout that Phebus put it through; muscles and ligaments that she hadn't even known she'd possessed protesting fiercely at their sudden use. She can't imagine how Phebus channelled the bodily strength. But the physical part is, well, beside the point. What bothers her is how it _felt_ – the rush of blood to the head, the scent of the hunt, the exultation of the hard metal of a gun in her hand, the sinuous attraction of a cool blade – not her own thoughts, certainly, but still pulsing through her mind while she stood, incapable. It upsets her that her people saw her like that, that people were hurt by her own hand; but it terrifies her that deep down, somewhere within, she had recognised an echo of familiarity in it—

John's eyes move rapidly behind his closed eyelids. He still can't wrap his brain around the bundle of confused emotions that Thelan had imported into his mind. It's not that John doesn't understand the desire for vengeance, the almost righteous anger of a solider. He does, all too well. But Thelan's was so muddled up, so blended in with tentacles of fear at finding himself the last of his kind, swamping John in the abject, utter horror of being alone in the universe, the final one left with memories of your race. That, and the fact that the only person left in the galaxy that you had any form of bond with was a woman hungering passionately for the sight of your own blood spilt on the floor by her hands, bare or otherwise—

John and Elizabeth cast each other surreptitious glances, peeking sideways when they think it will go unnoticed.

And are startled to find themselves staring at each other, eyes plunging deep into souls; eyes unable, unwilling, to pull away. The look that they share says more than all the syllables spoken between them earlier, and questions of warriors and fears fall to the wayside. That look tells of what it felt like for his ears to hear her voice calling him husband. That looks tells of what it felt like for her lips to be framing the word in his direction. Even though it wasn't really _him _being addressed, even though it wasn't really _her _speaking. That look tells of what it felt like to have the contours of her body pressed against his chest. That look tells of what it felt like when her hands grasped the muscles of his neck. That look percolates deep beneath their skins and reveals, at last, how it felt like to be so close that they could breathe each other in—

They startle like children when the door slides open and Carson comes in, the look scattering into a thousand fragments in the space between them. They tear their eyes apart and stare at their blankets like lost mariners desperately trying to find some familiar bearing in the night sky; trying to find some way to make things the way they were before.

They wonder if they can.

Wonder, if they want to.


End file.
